Revolution of the American Society

The history of American culture and the civil war are the main contributors of the revolution of the American society. Since colonialism, servants and other poor whites have discriminated a barrier between landowners and slaves, who made up the lower social class. Poor whites associated themselves with the powerful landowners to win favors instead of addressing the common interests between them and the slaves. This led dominance of the white race over the social class status. Modern writings explore ethnic lives. The literature opposes the idea that people are born to subjectivity in society. Cultural practices bring in gender identity and leads to other perspectives on ethnicity in the United States. The literature does not adopt the cultures which they should inherit this is specifically with the notion and development of marginalized minority, the American society had to deal with, problems of regionalism, classism, colorism and sexism. The cultural practices complicate the boundary between the minor the dominant. The American culture is unique in its multicultural nature. The culture is depicted in literary texts, where appropriate marginal position and minority cultures undermine the discourse and vital values (Griess 82).

The history of America has the significant record of code-switching. Code-switching is mainly an outstanding characteristic of many parts of the modern world in which either two or more communities of different speech live close to one another. Unfortunately, it is often misunderstood. Mostly, many people confuse code-switching with the historical prevalent practice of word borrowing. For instance, English words like “laundry” (londri), “to lunch” lonchar, “bills” (biles) and “the block” (el bloque) are loaned and regularly common in the Spanish monolinguals of New York City. Furthermore, they have been adapted phonologically and morpho-syntically absolutely in such a way the members of second generation really think they are part of Spanish lexicon (Goff 78).

The commonly known loans such londri are not included among the code switches since they appear in monolingual speech. The confusion that arises between code-switching and loans is mainly the occurrence of a new language or language deterioration. There are negative evaluations of the intellectual abilities of the people who code switch. For instance, the speakers of the mixture of Spanish and English are termed as deprived bilinguals because they do not have the capacity to speak fluently in either English or Spanish. Language alteration is the basis of code-switching. Children’s choice of language is mainly dependent on the proficiency of the speaker with whom they interact.

The requirement setting also dictates their choice as their response goes to the dominant language that was spoken to them. Code-switching has the role of fulfilling society’s expectation that children should make a choice of which language to use when addressing others. Parents are keen in making effort for their children to address a speaker in the language, which they understand best. However, in school, this could not be the scenario as a teacher could be a monolingual who is proficient only in English or Spanish. This is so unlike the home setting where there are workers who understand Spanish better than English whereas the children themselves understand English better than they understand Spanish (Philip Goff 112).

Therefore, in the course of communication, the children have to switch languages when addressing their siblings in English and the workers in Spanish. The opportunity of code-switching also presents itself, in group discussions in which they is no specified language and each participant is free to air their views in the language, which they understand most. Language alteration is caused by the change of addressee. For instance, in a context where Loita (eight-year-old) hurls Timmy (five-year-old) off her bike and reports to adult thereby. Both Loita and Timmy spoke in English as they always did except in this exception where Loita had to Timmy in Spanish “porque TU me diste!” for the adults’ benefit. Since both Loita and Timmy are fluent in English, they spoke strictly in English all through but switched language in regard to the dominance of the address they were addressing.

The quick alternation of language to accommodate people who are dominant in only one language does accustom children to juxtapose the different phonology, syntax and morphology lexicon o Spanish and English easily. Since code-switching is variable in nature, not every realignment of a conversation is really accompanied by a switch. Realignment is a strategy in which code-switching has communicative functions. For instance, code-switching was mainly used in communicative functions in daily conversation by el bloque’s children. In realignment, the speaker makes a shift in topic with a shift in language, without necessarily having a consistent link between topic and language. For example, “Vamos a preguntable. It’s raining!”. (“Let’s go ask her.”)

Realignment strategies are the most prevalent switches with a wide variety, except for clarifications required. Language choice is inevitably influenced by language knowledge of an individual. The most significant switches into English and Spanish are the most convincing illustrations of children’s intertwining of their two language worlds. The boundaries between the dominant language and the less vocal community were overlooked by the successful bilingual transition. The very successful switches between English and Spanish are limited by language difference and proficiency of individual respondents. Language switches are not only influenced by an individual’s English or Spanish preference but also the fact that each language has power and its unique strategies. English for instance, has a symbolic domination due to its power on the global, national as well as the local level.

Initially English was only language of the Sovereign and the rich United States, which spread by means of its great technologically advanced media and precisely spoken by the first class. On the other hand, Spanish was a language of a colonized and poverty-stricken Puerto Rico and notably of its second-class residents. More often, it is monolinguals who harbor the mistaken idea, which takes code switchers to be confused in a way between the two or various languages that use. This is solely because monolinguals are not able to conceive of an individual’s ability to switch languages without much effort. Code-switching is a remarkable capability that is worth to be adored rather than being criticized. The critics of code-switching suffer from the inability of their brains to process the instant alternation from one language to the other. The perception that code-switchers are hardly able to separate their languages is a mere misconception ( Griess74).

Practically, when students sit in class for study, there are institutions where they strictly use English. However, when students are out and gather for lunch, they effortlessly code-switch amidst themselves. The aspect of code-switching should not perceived as a threat to language purity as its basis is found in facilitating communication than rather deteriorating a particular language in any way. A proficient code switcher will truly maintain his fluency in each of the language he speaks rather than become inefficient as the critics fear. The term code in code-switching does refer to secret but rather a reflection of the idea that language does encode information is a certain form and is thus seen as variant codes in different languages. Code-switching is a skill that has brought focus into the behavior of children more in the process of learning various languages. In most instances, genuine code switching code-switching presents more than mere substitution of one word with another. However, if a speaker does not know a particular term in his or her mother tongue, the use of a familiar term from the second language is borrowing and not code-switching (Griess 84).

In other scenarios, code-switching is absolutely restricted by grammatical factors. The possibilities of a grammatical switch are limited as opposed to ungrammatical switches. The acceptability of Spanish- English code-switched sentences is limited by the sentence order. In Spanish, adjectives usually come after nouns whereas, in English, adjectives precede nouns. For example: el (“the”), hombre (“man”), Viejo (“old”) and enojado (“angry”)

The hombre viejo is angry.

El old man esta` enojado .This code-switching is more relatively acceptable than the first one. The constraint facing code switchers is actually the constrain that if a language’s word order is different from the other it would be ungrammatical to switch since it is a violation of the languages’ respective grammars (Griess 124).

Code switching arises in multilingual and multicultural communities. This is true and comes into use in students’ discourse. It is necessary for one to have at least a basic understanding of the various functions of code-switching from native language to the foreign language. With this understanding, it will be easier for teachers to appreciate the use of code-switching in class discourse hence better instruction through its dominant use in the course of foreign language instruction. There are various functions of code-switching in varied aspects. The alternation of languages in language classes brings code-switching. The application of code-switching in education context is a necessity for students in a class are usually from different language ethnicity. Code-switching will occur naturally especially in a class context where a switch in topic arises. Tracing a student’s background that puts him or her in the state of being a bilingual is mainly a wish to convey meaning which is mainly intended. Many code switchers find code-switching a solution for modifying language for their sake of self-expression. Code-switching is worth appreciation for it provides platform of building intimate relationships in among the members of a bilingual society (Griess 144).

The American independence was out of a battle that lasted eight years. Later, it was followed by a series of stiff tension posed by the Great Britain. The solution was established in a time range of end of war and constitution inauguration. The revolution lasted a quarter century with a series of many events. The civil war was remarkably tough and one of the bloodiest ever. It among the longest conflicts recorded on the history of America. Quite a number were against independence while thousands were on the King’s side. An intervention by European powers provided good support for the revolutionaries. The revolution merged a country out of thirteen colonies which had great difficulties on ways to cooperate with each other. The colonies were formerly under British power. Although they had a common colonialist they had problems finding unity among themselves. After the long period of up and downs the thirteen colonies managed to coalesce into a new nation although not an easy process. It was a series of trial and error all through before the triumphant achievement. The founders of the state are practically a hardworking group of people. Despite there were prejudices among themselves, they managed to come up with political institutions that were firm and provided the citizens with liberties and rights (Goff 92).

After the civil war, the capitalist who had economic and political dominance never precedent the need for more crucial changes in the American society. The successful capitalist bourgeois revolutionists left several things incomplete. The imbalance between the wealthy whites and poor whites carried out the Agrarian revolution unfairly. The inequitable reform gave the minority white farmers a limited chance to advance themselves. The 1862 Act denied the small white farmer access to a big portion of land with the Federal government authorizing huge pieces of land to the construction of railways. However, this was not welcome by the Negroes as they played a big role in the victory over the planters. The freedmen were denied freedom to economic independence which would in turn lead to social justice and equality for the slaves. In the nineteenth century, the main conflict arose due to the failure of bourgeois regime to solve the Negro problem. The fight by coalition of forces from different classes won in the civil war and brought victory for American democracy. It stands out that the best democracy is that which is restricted to some reasonable limit. Formal democracy from a political point of view was dominated by Democrats who controlled the running of the white house and congress. They governed the state and passed many policies on war and peace. The monopolists who held slaves posed great threat to democracy. They organized counterrevolution with of global allies instead of solving progressive interest of their people (Halttunen 45).